The Iranians

Why, yes, they are crazy:

During the past week I’ve spoken to a number of skilled and experienced observers of the region, and every one them is hard put to make sense of Iranian motives. In the absence of a rational explanation, let me offer this one: The mullahs are nuts. I don’t mean that they are nuts in the way that a power-mad tinpot dictator is nuts, but rather that they are world-historically, existentially, and metaphysically nuts. Their character and circumstances, that is to say, impel them toward actions that would be irrational for another character under other circumstances.

The treatment of Iran by the Obama administration was probably the biggest (among many) of its foreign-policy disasters.

“Saving The Planet”

“Why it’s not in my job description as an environmentalist.”

[Afternoon update]

Oberlin College

…is claiming poverty.

Screw them. Put them out of business. Let them serve as an example to the other Social Justice Universities.

[Update a while later]

Campus insanity is migrating into society, and Republicans had better stop it before it’s too late.

This is also a useful reminder that contra leftist tropes, business, and corporations, hate the free market.

Plus this:

…key Republican leaders, like Senator Lamar Alexander (R–Tenn.), are resisting calls from among their colleagues and conservative groups to attach protections for free speech to the endlessly flowing spigot of cash from Washington. Instead, Republicans seem to be substituting real support for free speech with a toothless resolution, which pays lip service to calling out speech codes and speech “zones” as contrary to the First Amendment.

There is a reason (well, lots of reasons) they call them the Stupid Party.

[Friday-morning update]

Will Oberlin learn its lesson? Probably not.

[Update a while later]

The jury hated Oberlin.

And deservedly so.

In my view, the main significance of the jury’s verdict is that is shows how normal people react when they are exposed to today’s campus leftism. You cannot sell to a normal person the idea that it is “racism” for a store to catch a student stealing a bottle of wine, and call the police, merely on account of the student’s skin color. Social justice warrior culture is insane, and is properly judged as such by normal people, who–luckily for them–tend not to encounter it often. The jury’s reaction to the demonization of Gibson’s bakery is, I think, a good indication of how most Americans will respond if, and when, they realize how depraved the Left has become.

Yes.

[Saturday-morning update]

Conor Friedersdorf has the full story:

After that initial round of protests, Oberlin caved to student demands to cancel all its business with the bakery. Later, an Oberlin Police Department investigation, undertaken to probe accusations of racist behavior at the bakery, found that among 40 adults arrested for shoplifting at the business in a five-year period, six were black, suggesting vigilant enforcement against people of all races.

“Suggesting…”

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!